INTERVIEW
85,000 tests were carried out in Marseille compared to 33,000 in Île-de-France. These figures, which date from April 12, illustrate the strategy adopted by the Marseille city against the tide of the rest of France: Massive testing to fight against the coronavirus. Guest of It happened this week, Nicolas Lévy, head of service at APHM and director of the genetic research unit of Inserm at the University of Aix-Marseille returns to this exception which is so much talked about: in total , practically one in ten inhabitants was tested, that is to say a little more than 2.5% of the population, ranking the city in the first place of those having practiced the most.
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A collaboration between doctors and hospital administration
This strategy was decided by the doctors and more particularly those of the hospital-university Institute of infectious diseases Mediterranean Infections, directed by the very controversial Didier Raoult. "The general feeling is that the hospital administration let the doctors work and put themselves at the service of efficiency and it was, I think, something great and which, I hope will continue in the future ", rejoices Nicolas Lévy.
The head of service insisted on "the speed of responses and the responsiveness of the administration to medical requests as we have not always seen in the past". "The doctors, for the most part, decided on the strategy to put in place, the way in which care should be organized and there was a real link between the doctors and the administration," he concludes.
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According to him, it is this collaboration that has enabled the city to carry out its numerous tests, also involving work with laboratories which have also made themselves available to doctors. "Testing is something we know how to do and our colleagues at ICHU Méditerranée Infection know how to do these tests, like us geneticists, without having to use ready-made kits", explains Nicolas Lévy. Thus, at the start of the epidemic, it was mainly "tests carried out and constructed by doctors, biologists and researchers from the Mediterranean Infection Institute" that were carried out.
"There was no total saturation"
This cooperation seems to have paid off, since only 324 out of 578 intensive care beds are occupied in Marseille, according to recent figures. If Nicolas Levy wants to be cautious, he nevertheless emphasizes the beneficial effects of the management chosen by Marseille doctors.
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"Indeed, the number of patients hospitalized in intensive care units was, at one point much higher than that. There was in Marseille, as elsewhere, strong tensions in hospitalization including in intensive care units ", he admits. "But let's say that there was no total saturation as we have seen in other French regions."
"We will not resume our normal activities for several weeks, I think. Indeed, even if we start a small increase in load of less urgent activities, we still have to remain cautious and be able to cope with a rise in the level of the patient in resuscitation ", he delays however.